by Gus Lee
Miss Harper Lee sat at a small table on stage.
“Good evening, General Jannarone, Colonel Sutherland, faculty of the Department of English, ladies and gentlemen, and gentlemen of the Fourth Class of the Corps of Cadets.”
She was a small person, conservatively garbed in a simple dark dress, her hair wrapped into a conservative bun atop her head. Her voice was softly Southern, with high musical notes, and crystal clear in a hall that was utterly silent. It reminded me of someone, and I sat up, breathing rapidly.
“This is very exciting,” she said slowly, “because I do not speak at colleges. The prospect of it is too intimidating. Surely, it’s obvious—rows of bright, intense, focused students, some even of the sciences, all of them analyzing my every word and staring fixedly at me—this would terrify a person such as myself.
“So, I wisely agreed to come here, where the atmosphere would be far more relaxing and welcoming than on a rigid, strict, rule-bound, and severely disciplined college campus.”
The auditorium erupted in laughter, something we had not yet done together, and it released tensions that had begun on Reception Day, had increased through the rigors of Beast and Plebe year and the loss of friends, and until now had not been freed. I laughed until Clint hit me to shut up. We applauded thunderously, which probably confused her.
“She’s great,” I breathed.
“If we were blessed with parents who love, and who love others,” she said a while later, “we have souls who will live within us for all our lives. They fortify us in times of need, strengthening our hearts when we need strengthening most. Most of you young men are in this category, of having been loved by family, aided and cared for by people who know you best.”
I thought of Toos and his mother, Tony, Uncle Shim. I thought of Jack Peeve and his parents, and all the people at the Y.
“Today we are urged to live beyond our homes, in industry, education, the professions. Here we are in the midst of some who do not love, do not cherish our quaint habits, and are uncaring about our needs. This experience need not be sad, but it is clearly different than being with family.”
She took a small sip of water from the tumbler on the table.
“When we seek to replace family in new environs, we seek to reestablish trust, and love, and comfort.
“But all too often, we end up establishing difference instead of love. We like to have all our comforts and familiars about us, and tend to push away that which is different, and worrisome.
“That is what happened to Boo Radley, and to Tom Robinson.
“They were not set apart by evil men, or evil women, or evil thoughts. They were set apart by an evil past, which good people in the present were ill equipped to change.
“The irony is, if we divide ourselves for our own comfort, no one will have comfort. It means we must bury our pasts by seeing them, and destroy our differences through learning another way.
“Of course, many people, not including a soul present tonight, come from families that include members who do not like change, do not love their neighbors, detest their own children, despise people of other colors, and loathe those from other states.
“As a writer, I am fascinated with these people, cursed with hate, overladen with dislikes. For they contain within their souls the foibles and weaknesses of us all.”
I sighed.
“Our response to these people represents our earthly test. And I think,” she said, speaking to the small microphone before her, her hands crossed on her lap, her head at a small angle, as if she were studying it, “that these people enrich the wonder of our lives. It is they who most need our kindness, because they seem less deserving. After all, anyone can love people who are lovely.”
I thought of Christine, who was lovely, and not easy to love.
“Are these principles for life? Perhaps. Some of this affected me when I wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. To me, it is a simple love story about family and honoring that which is good.”
Love. A lecture on love and tolerance at the United States Military Academy, from a woman novelist speaking to a society of men. I could hear the air ducts dusting the air in the auditorium. An unoiled chair distantly squeaked near the back of the aud.
“People in the press have asked me if this book is descriptive of my own childhood, or of my own family.
“Is this very important? I am simply one who had time and chance to write. I was that person before, and no one in the press much cared about the details of my life. I am yet that same person now, who only misses her former anonymity.
“So I tell people, because curiosity is both natural and wonderful, that in every character who appears in any story, the author draws from life some who are known to her, and some whom she has met through her reading of other, more capable authors.”
Soon it was time for the questions. Five of the top cadets, who had written superior essays on Boo Radley, took seats behind a table on the right of the stage: Mike Benjamin, Sonny “Rap” Rappa, Davey Curve Wrecker Glick, Rocket Scientist Mercury Ziegler, and “Gentleman” Jules Green.
“Good evening, Miss Lee. I am Cadet Fourth Classman Michael Warren Benjamin. The members of the Fourth Class uniformly”—he paused, smiling his bright Clark Gable grin—“enjoyed your book. We were asked by our professors to answer the question ‘Who Is Boo Radley?’ I have taken a composite of the answers to form a question: Does Boo Radley represent a tension of transference, and the failure of social mobility between the lower classes and the nobility, or does he represent the ultimate demise of the vanishing classical hero, or is he an icon of the continuing tension between Locke and Hobbes?”
Crap! I thought. What a question!
“Goodness, Mr. Benjamin,” she said, laughing. “I recall Boo Radley as the poor, lonely fellow who lived in that house next door to the Finches.”
Again the class roared in laughter. I felt like crying. Her voice and softly spoken, musical words caressed my brain, encouraging tears. I felt as if I were losing control as nameless emotions surged wildly and feared I was going crazy and would begin laughing uncontrollably. Focus—look for Captain Mac. He was in the first row on the right. I studied the woman with short brown hair with him, and the boy on his lap. A girl, maybe eight, leaned on his shoulder. He seemed happy to have his children so physically close to him. He was smiling openly at Harper Lee. His smile was infectiously warm. I took a deep, shuddering breath.
I thought of the multitude of answers we could produce that Captain Mac would deem correct, as long as we were honest and tried to reach beyond our conventional limits. Math did not seek honesty; it sought precision in accordance with proven principle. Calculus produced a single approved solution. Engineering reminded me of many things I did not like.
Miss Lee spoke of writing family stories, and thought those with pain and disorder were more engaging than those without. I figured that was going too far, but my warm admiration for her, confirmed by Captain Mac’s smile, was boundless.
As we marched back, bracing, eyes straight ahead, we whispered, hissing speech escaping from the corners of our mouths.
“Arch,” I asked, “how can I love a woman who’s so old?”
“Heck,” he whispered, “since R-Day, I love all women. Jean at the Thayer. Mrs. Holland, the cadet hostess. The statue of Fame on Battle Monument. I like Blondie in the comics. Models in The New York Times. I love all the secretaries.”
“This is different.”
“That’s cuz being here is different,” he hissed.
“Her voice remind you of someone?” I asked. Arch had dated more girls than I had met.
“Southern ladies,” he said.
“She reminds me of someone I knew, a long time ago,” I said. “Can’t remember who. It’s her voice, how musical it is. I mean, that voice really got to me. But I didn’t know anyone white from the South. It wasn’t the accent, it was the tone. Damn, that’s so strange. Arch—think she’d write back if I wrote her?”
We pas
sed under the dual streetlights at Thayer Road and shut up until we entered the dark alley to New South Barracks.
“Right!” he hissed. “ ‘Dear Miss Lee, I’m one of eight hundred faceless cadets in dress gray you spoke to at West Point. Please write. And send food. Your big fan, Kai.’ Fat chance. I got a better chance of getting a date with Queen Elizabeth.”
“Didn’t know ya were tryin’,” said Joey.
“Hey. Aim low, hit low,” he whispered.
16
LOSS
Old South Barracks, West Point, May 1965
It was in May, when the upper classes radiate benevolence, when Plebes are BJ and robins serenade in five-note calls, that the debonaire Marco Matteo Fideli came calling. I was writing a letter to Christine when he bashed in our door and Clint, Joey, and I responded like the Three Little Pigs.
“SLAM BODIES ON THE WALL!” Pens, books, Kiwi polish cans, and shoe-shine rags flew in the air as we thundered against the wall.
“I just heard that you are D in math,” he hissed like a hungry, malevolent wolf. “And that Rensler and Bestier are D in English. DID I HEAR INCORRECTLY?”
“NO, SIR!” we squealed.
“YOU WILL HIVE ’TIL THE RHODES COMMITTEE SINGS YOUR PRAISE! Mr. Ting, drive your goat brains to Trophy Point after Chapel.”
Under the broad shade of Battle Monument, he asked if I knew how stupid it would be for me to be found. The day was hot. I remembered the morning sun on the river road, a year ago, when my life seemed full of unlimited promise.
“The fates are flirting with you, preparing to write your name on the list of the Immortals.” Immortals were former cadets, expelled or separated from the Academy for deficiencies in brains, brawn, or will. Many simply had quit and walked away. They were frozen in the memories of their classmates as last seen—boys in the stasis of nascent manhood, forever young, forever separated from the collective.
“To be an Immortal is no grand objective,” he said. “It is the one way to achieve notoriety without talent.” He was so handsome, and I imagined the breathless beauty of his girlfriend.
“Caruso, Boethius was a fellow paisan who gave us De consolatione philosophiae. If he were with us, he’d recognize Fame.” Mr. Fideli pointed up, to the figure of the winged, scantily clad, golden girl. “Below her, the dead.” He motioned to the monument to the 2,230 men and officers of the Regular Army killed in the Civil War, consecrated by their surviving comrades. He turned to face Thayer and Bartlett Halls, the playing fields. “There, Endeavor and Strength. In the admin building management meets, but really they pray to Athena for Wisdom.” He smiled thinly. “She comes when she will.” He looked at the flag. “Duty, Patria. Up there, on the rock, with the chapels, Boethius gives way to St. Augustine’s Faith, Hope, and Love. In the barracks is our collective heart—Brotherhood and Honor.”
He faced east. “The river is Providence and Grace, too grand to be understood by us.” He exhaled. “It’d be the failing of your young life to get found. Caruso, you’re fighting a demon. I don’t know its name. Nor may you. No doubt it’s from your past.” He nodded at the river and the rock. “This is now. Make it bigger and stronger than your old demon. Engineer a solution. And hurry.”
Clint, Joey, and I began to muck. “No more wisecrack answers,” I said. They agreed. We reviewed the basic structure of essay writing. Clint got it and Joey didn’t. Miss Harper Lee’s appearance meant that Mockingbird would appear prominently in the heart of the WFR, written final review, or whufer, so we retraced the plot, broke down the characters, and established the probable thematic messages, intended or not. Clint got it and Joey didn’t.
“Pop’s prouda me,” Joey said. “I’m gonna get the college degree and commission he didn’t get.”
“Don’t say that,” I said. “Indulge my Chinese superstitions.”
Joey smiled, just like Danny Kaye. “Okay,” he said dubiously.
Clint passed. Joey and ten other members of our company Plebes didn’t, and faced a final “turn out” exam. If they passed, they were in. If they failed, they were out. Curve Wrecker Glick, Mercury Ziegler, and I worked on prepping Joey.
I passed math. Mr. McWalters congratulated me by allowing me, Curve Wrecker, and Rocket Scientist to eat leftovers from other tables with Big Bites. I was at work when Mr. Fideli sat beside me.
“Pray continue. I dare not interfere with art. I’m delighted that Athena smiled on you. No, I don’t want any more beef ragout.” He smiled brightly. “Report to my room after Grad Parade. I’m giving you my shako. Use it to carry a tune. I will miss our talks and your Broadway ditties.” He gazed at the cavernous mess hall, where only the chowhounds were at labor. His time here was short. I would miss him. I almost put down my fork. I felt his nostalgia. He was going to give me his plumed full-dress cadet helmet.
“Do you know why I adopted you?”
I chewed and swallowed. “Sir, my sense of humor. My dash, my cultured suaveness, my table manners and dainty eating habits?”
“It was your frown during the first clothing formation. Never before had I seen one of such intensity, such gravity—a frown of pure Grecian pathos. I decided, despite the fact that your singing bore the promise of long-dead fish, I would try to make you smile.”
“You did that, sir.” The words “Tragedy tomorrow, Comedy tonight!” rang through my mind. A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down our pants. I grinned with a mouthful of food.
“Well, we’re off to win a war. I wish you well, Kai Ting. Good luck. Don’t forget to drop by after P-rade.”
“Best of luck to you, shir,” I said, my mouth full.
Clint ran into the mess hall, bracing. “Hurry!” he hissed.
On the H-1 company bulletin board was a list of academically disqualified cadets passed down by the Academic Board:
David Neil Alduss/found: mathematics
Jeremy Odette Conoyer III/found: mathematics
Terrence Phillip Dirkette/found: English and German
Peck Levine Mankoff/found: physical education (swimming)
Earl Tecumseh Mims/found: English
Joseph NMN Rensler II/found: English
When Clint and I returned to the room, Joey was packing, his cot rolled, and Bob had his head down, praying. I shook my head. Man, what good would that do?
Joey shook my hand. “Thanks, Kai, for helpin’ me.”
I shook my head. “Not good enough,” I said.
“Hey, I tried, honest.”
“I’m not good enough,” I said.
“Hey, book outa here!” said Joey. “You’re great. De greatest! Watch—dey’ll require Chinese. I’ll come back an’ do ya proud!”
I couldn’t say anything.
“I’ll jus be down de block in de Bronx.” He was going into the Infantry as a private first class, eligible for Vietnam.
The thirty of us had become twenty. Jean at the Thayer Hotel had been right; we had lost one out of three. Then I remembered the losses from Beast, before academics had even begun, and physics, chemistry, Juice, nuclear physics, and more math awaited us.
The companies stood in massed formation of gray and white, gold and steel, for Graduation Parade. The Firsties, sabers drawn, broke ranks and marched out as a class toward the north end of the plain and the river, leaving the Corps behind to the heart-pounding tune of the West Point March. It was a song that brought a tear to the hardest heart, the most cynical Plebe, the oldest soldier, its irresistible melody impressing upon us the timelessness of an Academy graduation, and the significance of losing classmates and the seniors, the Class of 1965. They would always be giants to me.
“Bye, Pete!” “See ya, Bill!” “So long, Johnny!” called out the Cows and Yearlings, in a traditional valediction that, through the crash of drums and bugles, the deafening cheers and applause, the forty thousand in attendance never heard. Goodbye, I whispered. Bye Marco and Mario Fideli, Bo Kleiner, “Bela Lugosi” Kirchhoff, Big Jim Stoner the heartless pirate, Jake Kimure
, captain of the gym team, Roger Stichweh, our quarterback, and Fitz McBay, Southern Traditionalist. Guan Yu, keep your big spear above their heads.
The Class of ’68 had done its last bracing. In Recognition, the final exercise of Plebe year, we stood at attention and extended our arms above our heads, holding our rifles high while the upper classes bashed in our shiny brass breastplates with their rifle butts and etched their names into the metal with their sabers. I felt like the cherry tree under George Washington’s axe. Then they shook our hands, telling us their first names. It was a surprise that some of those people even had first names.
Most of us managed to avoid Mr. O’Ware’s offered hand. Arch and I had not been so lucky. “Frenchy O’Ware,” he said, offering to shake, his white glove off: the glove that had found dust where there was none; the glove with the pointing digit, illuminating failures, or differences that were our weaknesses; the glove of a bigot who had taken pleasure from our fears.
“Kai Ting.” I thought of the names he had called Stew Mersey, the nights he had taken from me because he didn’t like my face.
“Arch Torres,” he said, shaking O’Ware’s hand firmly. “That’s for public consumption.” He smiled. “Frenchy, you ever screw with any Plebes like you did us, I’ll kick your sorry ass from here to the river.”
All of the Hell-One’s former Plebes gathered in the middle of the hallway in the central division of company barracks.
“We made it, guys,” said Bob “Big Bus” Lorbus. He put his hand out in the middle, palm down, and twenty hands piled on top.
“Absent friends and comrades,” said Bob, and we repeated it, loudly and with great force, shaking the walls, my voice the loudest.
Arch Torres and Deke Schibsted joined Lorbus and me in our room. We all collapsed on the floor, happy to let the earth support us, feeling like survivors from a year-long airplane crash. We had become upperclassmen. By working nineteen hours a day and by carrying twenty semester hours while dancing with the TD, dodging OPE, taking military training and a pre-Olympics sports schedule, we had squeezed two and a half years of life and two years of college into twelve months. That was why I missed Joey Rensler, Ravine Mankoff, Tecumseh Mims, and the others, so much.